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DSK denies paying hotel maid $6m settlement

DOMINIQUE Strauss-Kahn has reportedly agreed to pay a $US6 million ($A5.7 million) settlement to the New York hotel maid whose accusations of sexual assault ruined his career. His lawyers deny it.

Although the criminal prosecution against the former head of the International Monetary Fund and one-time French presidential contender collapsed last year, Nafissatou Diallo has pursued her allegations against Mr Strauss-Kahn in the civil courts.

Ms Diallo alleged that the 63-year-old forced her to perform a sex act on him while she was cleaning his Manhattan hotel suite in 2011. Mr Strauss-Kahn admitted the sexual encounter took place but denied attacking her.

Mr Strauss-Kahn's US lawyers said the report by the French newspaper Le Monde was ''flatly false''.

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One of the lawyers, William Taylor, hoped to sign an agreement to end the lawsuit in a few days, a spokeswoman said. Mr Taylor and Amit Mehta, lawyers with Zuckerman Spaeder LLP in Washington, said the two sides had ''discussed a resolution but there has been no settlement''.

Mr Strauss-Kahn ''vigorously denies the fantastical and erroneous information in Le Monde'', his French lawyers said.

Le Monde reported that to finance the out-of-court deal, Mr Strauss-Kahn would take out a $US3 million bank loan and borrow the rest from his estranged wife, Anne Sinclair.

Ms Sinclair, an American journalist and millionaire, stood by her husband throughout the scandal and provided his bail, but the pair finally separated mid this year and now live on opposite sides of Paris.